1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electronic musical instrument which is provided with real-time operating elements for controlling musical tone characteristics on real time basis.
2. Prior Art
A conventional electronic musical instrument in general stores, for each tone color (e.g. voice), parameters for determining musical tone characteristics (hereinafter referred to as "tone color parameters"), such as volume, tone color, pitch, and various tonal effects, and determines basic musical tone characteristics, based on these stored tone color parameters, to thereby obtain musical tone signals having various tone colors. Besides such tone color parameters, various real-time operating elements such as a pitch bender wheel, volume pedal, an initial-touch element, and an after-touch element are employed to more delicately and finely control the volume, tone color, pitch, tonal effects, etc. of a musical tone signal, of which the basic musical tone characteristics have been determined as above, to thereby produce more delicate and expressive musical tones.
However, the conventional electronic musical instrument stores only the tone color parameters for determining basic musical tone characteristics, but is not adapted to store musical tones, of which musical tone characteristics such as the volume and tone color have been controlled by real-time operating elements. As a result, when it is desired to reproduce a musical tone signal, of which the basic musical tone characteristic has been determined, by finely controlling the signal by real-time operating elements, it is very difficult to again reproduce exactly the same musical tone signal as a musical tone signal having a musical tone characteristic thereof delicately and finely controlled by operation of the real-time operating elements, which was obtained before.
Particularly, in the case where the electronic musical instrument has a tone generator which is of the so-called physical model simulation type having delay means and filter means, a musical tone can be largely changed by operations of real-time operating elements, it is more difficult or even almost impossible to reproduce exactly the same musical tone signal as a musical tone signal once obtained by real-time operating elements. The difficulty increases as the number of real-time operating elements employed is larger. Furthermore, under the circumstances, even if the operator desires to change the musical tone characteristic of a musical tone to be generated, based on a desired musical tone signal which was once obtained by operating real-time operating elements, his desire cannot be easily satisfied.